Looking around him, Zhu Shiqing felt a surge of feeling in his chest. Yanziji was craggy and imposing, graceful and fair—a natural strongpoint for blocking the Japanese, and in peacetime it was the unrivaled place to take in the view and lift the spirits.
If this were put to use for tourism…
Zhu Shiqing had read the books of the sages, and his belly was stuffed full of the knacks of governing. If you asked him how to deploy troops and mass fire here at Yanziji, that, for the man he was just then, would be a genuine difficulty.
But ask him how to grow trade and the economy and keep officialdom in order, and inside half a day he could pull out a full policy treatise for you.
"Kill! Kill! Kill!"
From a valley not far off, a chorus of killing cries echoed in perfect unison; set against the reverberations of the high hills on either side, it sounded eerily ethereal.
Apart from the garrison troops of Nanjing, Zhu Shiqing had never yet seen regular soldiers anywhere; he had not expected that Yanziji of all places would have men drilling.
"Stationed at Yanziji is the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Regiment, Reorganized 67th Division of the National Revolutionary Army. Its commander is Wu Zhiqing." Old Smoker walked on unhurriedly, hands clasped behind his back, not forgetting to explain as he went. "The unit was only formed last year. It moved into the Yanziji area barely a month ago."
At the same time, division-level combat formations of the National Revolutionary Army—the 2nd, 11th, 14th, 25th, 36th, 57th, 67th, 87th, and others—were scattered across the country undergoing reorganization and adjustment. This was the army's "Preparation Plan" that the Nationalist government had introduced in the twenty-fourth year of the Republic.
The "preparation divisions" came from this. Their beginning lay in the army organization adjustment scheme drawn up by the German general and chief military adviser von Falkenhausen; its core purpose was to meet the increasingly tense situation at home and abroad, and to prepare for a future large-scale war while strengthening national defense.
The General Staff attached enormous importance to the task of building these thirty divisions. Many believed that with the combat power of thirty elite divisions they could handle the great majority of local conflicts, and that if a large-scale war broke out, theater corps built on the preparation divisions would also have the capacity to settle the matter.
The underlying logic of the military and the political world was the same. In politics, from the central government down to the localities, everything was done with money; in the military, from the Central Army down to the local troops, everything was said with rifles.
Reorganize, reorganize—without weapons and equipment to back it up, even the most advanced and brilliant table of organization could only raise the efficiency of feeding men to the slaughter.
But constrained by the objective state of the nation's strength, most preparation divisions in fact had no way to obtain the weapons and equipment they were due under preparation standards.
Sun Beifeng's frequent comings and goings were for the sake of this Reorganized 67th Division as well.
The Reorganized 67th Division was one of the first units to undergo training and reorganization. Its weapons and equipment had been replenished comparatively well, and its organization had been built up relatively neatly. The General Staff needed to grasp the true combat power of a newly formed unit: the training results reflected in this unit were an important model for carrying the later training program forward.
Zhu Shiqing followed along behind Sun Beifeng the whole way, and could not help but be full of doubts at the scene before him. The Japanese main axis of attack ran from the Northeast southward; their spearhead now pressed on North China, and the situation in the north did not bear looking at. Yet the Nationalist government still kept most of its preparation divisions in the Jiangsu-Shanghai area. That could only mean that, as far as North China was concerned, the government had no intention of sending large reinforcements.
Even though the North China Incident had left countless Chinese hearts shaken and bitter, the north had never been able to effectively check the Japanese advance, and a series of the leader's compromising statements had also stirred enormous public reaction. This sent the government's credibility plummeting and left the people more and more dissatisfied.
One thing remained fresh in Zhu Shiqing's memory. It had happened last spring, less than half a year after the North China Incident broke out, when outrage across the country—especially among students—had not faded in the least. On a dark, windy night, a crowd had lain in wait for a public office clerk on his way to his duty post.
In the end, the clerk's body was left in the street. But under pressure of public opinion, the government never disclosed what followed: whether the real culprit was found, and if so, who it was—no one could know.
Whenever Zhu Shiqing thought of it, the hair on his arms stood up. He was just a lousy hired clerk; great affairs of state were beyond his knowledge, and decisions on development were not his to take part in. If he died on the front line of a clash with the people, that would be bad luck—and a disgrace besides.
…
The Reorganized 67th Division covered the area east of Nanjing from Tangshan to Qixia Mountain. Its basic training and operational unit was the battalion, distributed among the main counties and districts. Officers at brigade level and above mostly came from the Whampoa clique.
Wu Zhiqing was a native of Yichang, Hubei. He had taken part in the National Protection and Constitution Protection movements and in the Northern Expedition. During his service his military skills stood out; in the Northern Expedition he had once led a special duties battalion to cover the whole army's retreat, and on that account was promoted. Later he was assigned to the 67th Division as a lieutenant colonel and battalion commander.
Seeing Sun Beifeng and Zhu Shiqing arrive, Wu Zhiqing at once handed the training to his battalion deputy, trotted all the way over to Sun Beifeng, and raised his hand in a salute.
"Brother Sun, you've put yourself out to come again." Wu Zhiqing's features were rather fine; a smile at the corners of his mouth made him very easy to like, and his skin had a faint bronze cast. "Come inside with me, quickly."
Sun Beifeng introduced Zhu Shiqing briefly. Zhu Shiqing had no military record, so the two of them simply shook hands.
That said, Wu Zhiqing led them across the gravel flats where the men trained, and the camp came into view beyond it, cooking smoke rising slowly from deep within.
The camp stood at the tail end of the nearest valley mouth; further on were the villages where the people of Yanziji lived. The camp and training ground had been placed here precisely to avoid needless disturbance. The first room on the right of the barracks was Wu Zhiqing's office—and his quarters as well.
In revolutionary credentials Sun Beifeng was somewhat the senior. Most of the early Whampoa officers were young and full of ambition, and they felt great respect for the early revolutionaries; add to that Sun Beifeng's natural and peculiar charm, and the two were soon calling each other brothers.
Once the three of them had settled, Wu Zhiqing had a plate of peanuts and a pot of tea brought in, and was even a little embarrassed about it. "Brother Sun, drink is forbidden in the army. Let's use tea in place of wine; when we get the chance later, we'll have a proper drink."
Sun Beifeng had no habit of heavy drinking. He only loved tobacco.
"Far too polite, Brother Wu." Sun Beifeng was cheerful. "Every time I come here, I always find a bit of the old feeling again. Still, it's you young men who have the vigor, the spirit. I'm at the age where half of me is already in the ground; wanting to go kill the enemy is hard now."
Wu Zhiqing laughed out loud and teased him: "If you, old brother, have killed them all, what are the rest of us to do?"
Zhu Shiqing was amused too, and put in: "Uncle Sun, look at you bustling about all day. You'd be better off retiring early and enjoying your old age in peace, and leaving the chances to the young people."
The moment he said it, Zhu Shiqing felt something was off. Wu Zhiqing was only a few years older than himself—so between this "uncle" and this "brother," how had he ended up the junior of the three?
"Brother Zhu has it right. Brother Sun, you'll have to look after your little brother in the future too."
In fact, judging by prospects, Wu Zhiqing's future was boundless. To hold the rank of battalion officer in the Central Army before the War of Resistance broke out, plus the luster of the Whampoa clique—so long as he lived through it, he would end up a general one way or another.
The precondition was that he live through it.
Chapter 8